Journalism in the Case of Shirley Sherrod, an Ethical Analysis
The mainstreaming of the Internet has led to great advances in access to information, communication and resources. The mainstreaming of the Internet has also allowed for anyone with a connection to the Internet an avenue to share their point-of-view and insights on various topics. The Internet has largely been a legislative-free zone with almost no regulations which has splintered the idea of gate-keepers deciding what is or isn’t news. The optimistic would say that this splintering has helped to remove some of the partisanship and vitriol found in modern cable news. In light of a few recent news stories, particularly the case involving Shirley Sherrod, the splintering of our news media into a legislative-free frontier now begins to be questioned if it is a good thing.
To be able to properly analyze the case involving Shirley Sherrod, a general understanding of the events need to be introduced. Throughout 2009 and 2010, a case was argued that the Tea Party political movement had a racist bent to it. On Monday, July 19th 2010 Andrew Breitbart decided to post a video of Shirley Sherrod on his website, www.biggovernment.com illustrating that the group of people accusing the Tea Party of being racist, primarily the NAACP was actually a racist organization itself:
In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn't do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from "one of his own kind". She refers him to a white lawyer.
Sherrod's racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups' racial tolerance (Breitbart).
After the videos were posted, a number of organizations, appalled at the message given by Sherrod, acted immediately to condemn her comments, including the Federal Government firing her from her position within the department of Agriculture.
1. The case: the actors and their dilemmas. There are two main actors in this case. They, along with their dilemmas are:
Shirley Sherrod: Gave a speech to the NAACP that talked about how she had an incident with a family of farmers over two decades ago, “she was relating a story from two decades ago -- long before she joined the USDA -- and that she ultimately learned an important lesson to disregard race” (Condon). She had portions of her speech taken out of context by Andrew Breitbart and posted on his website to make a political point. From Sherrod’s perspective, she was accused of making racist comments, when she was really trying to make a speech on how she has grown to understand that it is important to help anyone that is struggling to make ends meet, regardless of the race of the person. Sherrod was also fired from her job with the government, without any vetting of the claims made by Andrew Breitbart and his website.
Andrew Breitbart: Runs a website called biggovernment.com which is a blog that compiles a variety of news stories and opinion pieces, mostly coming from a conservative ideology. Breitbart felt that the Tea Party movement was being unfairly classified as a racist movement and feels that it is his obligation to bring light to racist activities associated with the other side, “For the past week, Americans who consider themselves aligned with the Tea Party movement have suffered the indignity of being falsely labeled racist by the NAACP and their pro-bono publicity managers, the mainstream media. The constant calls to ‘repudiate the racists from your ranks’ have not only been insulting, but have also served to force a false standard upon America’s fastest-growing and most vibrant political movement that no other group could ever live up to nor would ever be asked to live up to. While the media has chosen to do the Democratic Party’s bidding in allowing for the NAACP to negatively and falsely brand the millions strong, loosely affiliated tea party phenomenon as “racist”, the moral indignation over race and racism has taken center stage in a summer of economic and political discontent” (Breitbart). Breitbart posted a video of Shirley Sherrod on his website to illustrate that the NAACP is a racist organization.
Result: Sherrod was forced to resign three hours after Breitbart posted his video (Media Matters for America). Later the NAACP posted the full unedited version of the video and it was revealed that Sherrod’s comments were taken out of context and the intention of her speech was not whites vs. blacks as Breitbart was attempting to portray but rather the haves vs. the have-nots and how people need to support the less fortunate. Question: Does Andrew Breitbart have an ethical responsibility to adhere to established journalistic standards in light of working in the new medium of Internet blogging?
2. Ethical theories and ideas: I will use the following three ethical theories to analyze this case. They are, along with the definitions:
Utilitarianism: Rule Utilitarianism, can the act be made into a universal law and still maximize happiness? “Rule-utilitarians argue that we ought to adopt rules that, if followed by everyone, would, in the long run, maximize happiness” (Johnson 38).
Deontology: Treat persons as ends, not merely as means, “Each person as a rational agent has dignity and profound worth that entails that he or she must never be exploited or manipulated or merely used as a means to our idea of what is for the general good—or to any other end. The individual is sacred and our acts must reflect as much” (Pojman 18); each person has a negative right to not be harmed; “Negative rights are rights that require restraint by others. For example, my right not to be killed requires that others refrain from killing me” (Johnson 46).
Value Ethics: Emphasizes the character of the moral agent, “For the Greeks, virtue meant excellence, and ethics was concerned with the excellences of human character. A person has these qualities is one who is capable of functioning well as a human being” (Johnson 49). The virtues this paper is concerned with are: Autonomy—taking personal responsibility and having personal integrity; Courage—doing the right thing; Graciousness—establishing an environment of congeniality and elegance; Responsibility—doing what ought to be done, being accountable for one’s actions (Solomon).
3. Analysis of the case. From the perspective of the ethical ideas defined in section 2, the case can be analyzed as follows.
After the uproar resulted from Breitbart’s posting of the edited Sherrod video, Breitbart argued on a variety of news cites that he never had the intention of harming Sherrod, that instead, his aim was to show the hypocritical behavior of the NAACP, “Sherrod was not the target, Breitbart said on ABC's ‘Good Morning America.’ Instead, the conservative intended to diminish the importance of the NAACP in retribution for their recent admonishment of elements of racism with the Tea Party movement” (Condon). Breitbart was using Sherrod to make a bigger point. What he did not realize, however, is that his actions caused Sherrod a great deal of harm. His actions portrayed her as a racist and forced Sherrod out of her job.
Breitbart in his actions, by treating Sherrod as a means to an end, ended up violating Sherrod’s negative right to not be harmed. Sherrod’s reputation was ruined, until the full video was aired and the context of the statements was known. Breitbart, in his action also failed from a Utilitarian perspective, as if his action was universalized in the form of a rule and anyone would air highly edited videos to make a larger point without regard to damage caused, happiness would not be maximized. As someone that is part of the journalism community, Breitbart has a responsibility to vet any source before using it, and he should have demonstrated the courage to take the time to report stories the right way, rather than the quick and dirty way. In the aftermath of Breitbart posting the video and Sherrod resigning, Breitbart did not demonstrate the autonomy or graciousness to identify that his actions might have caused unintended harm to Sherrod and offer an apology. Breitbart continued to stand by the position that he was making a larger point of racism in public discourse and that was the importance of the video, and the video highly edited or unedited made the same point.
4. Alternative Solutions: Three alternative solutions are possible for this case. Andrew Breitbart could have:
- done just as he did,
- not air the video, or
- wait until the complete context of the video was understood and use the traditional journalistic method of vetting sources before deciding to use the source.
5. Preferred solution and ethical reasons. Andrew Breitbart, by posting the Sherrod speech to his website as hastily as he did, did more to undermine his cause and the point he was trying to make then it did to help it. If there were some valid points to be made through his video, they weren’t talked about because every story was focused on the harm that was caused to Shirley Sherrod and the fact that his video took comments out of context and painted Sherrod as a horrible person. His credibility was lost by his actions.
The more appropriate action to take would have been option c. Breitbart should have taken the time to understand the context of the context of the video before using it to try to score cheap political points. He would have demonstrated through his actions autonomy and responsibility by showing that he had an understanding of the weight of the issues being addressed and that these issues should not be treated with a light hand. By taking the time to review his source, he could establish a rule that all sources must be properly vetted before used and this would be a rule that overtime increases happiness. Through his actions he would have demonstrated that the previously agreed upon rules of print journalism should carry the same weight in the digital world of new media. By using these previously agreed upon rules, the need for legislation is avoided and the free-thought wild frontier aspect of the internet that allows for the dissemination of the “old-world” gate-keepers while still allowing the public to understand that any source that reports news, is reporting it from a credible perspective.
Breitbart, in taking the time to vet his source before using it would have also allowed himself time to make a public statement through his website that the focus of the video is not Shirley Sherrod, but instead what he believes is the egregious and hypocritical behavior of the audience in the video. Breitbart would have demonstrated graciousness by establishing an environment of congeniality allowing space for debate rather than vitriol. He also would have demonstrated courage by opening up himself to debate on the issues rather than chasing the windmills of edited behavior. Finally, Breitbart would show respect to Sherrod’s negative rights, by not presenting her in a racist and inflammatory manner by using her as means to an end. He would hopefully detach her from the story and instead focus on where his true concerns are in the video. By choosing option c, Breitbart would allow himself to remain a credible voice for the libertarian movement and even if he were to lose the debate on this particular incident, the debate would be on the merit and he would remain a viable source for news in the future rather than a hollow shell of credibility.
Breitbart, Andrew. “Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism—2010.” biggovernment.com. Breitbart. n.d. Web. Nov. 2010.
Condon, Stephanie. “Andrew Breitbart: Video Was Meant to Target the NAACP, Not Shirley Sherrod.” cbsnews.com. CBS News. July 22, 2010. Web. Nov. 2010.
Johnson, Deborah. Computer Ethics. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2009. Print.
Media Matters for America. “Timeline of Breitbart’s Sherrod Smear.” Mediamatters.org. Media Matters for America. July 22, 2010. Web. Nov. 2010
Pojman, Louis P. “What is Moral Philosophy?” Technology and Values. Ed. Kristin Shrader-Frechette and Laura Westra. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997. 18. Print.
Solomon, Robert C. A Better Way to Think About Business. New York: Oxford Press, 1999. Print.